First Class Holidays’ former head of national sales Katie Daniels has rejoined the operator after leaving less than a year ago.
Daniels, who has spent the last nine months working for Maldives DMC Koveli Travel, has been tasked with developing First Class’ islands programme to the trade. The programme includes the Caribbean, South Pacific, Hawaii and Indian Ocean.
Daniels, who previously worked for Kuoni and Funway Holidays, spent more than six years at First Class but left in October 2022. She returns to the operator on August 7 as Islands senior specialist.
Managing director Daniel Gathercole said: “It’s great to get Katie back in this new role. She left for very good reasons but returns to us with more experience and we are delighted she will work with our agents from start to finish to make these destinations easy to sell.”
Daniels said: “I can’t wait to launch the Islands products to our travel agent partners. Koveli was a great experience for me to learn in-depth about the Maldives, but this role gives me a chance to combine all my experience of the Islands’ products in one place and I can’t wait to speak to our agents to tell them all about it.”
Daniels played a significant role in the creation of ‘Islands by First Class Holidays’ during the pandemic but Gathercole said agents still did not know that the operator offered the destinations.
“We have been selling Canada 27 years, America for 20 years and Australia and New Zealand for 18 years, and South Africa for three years and some agents still don’t know we sell all these destinations, so we see this as a great opportunity,” he added.